


Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes

by shewho



Series: All is Well (It’s Only Blood) [1]
Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Medical Inaccuracies, Mild Gore, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not Established Relationship, POV Multiple, Police Procedural, Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7935817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewho/pseuds/shewho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leave it to Jamie Reagan to see that history repeats itself in the streets of New York.<br/>-------<br/>[Sometimes you need to see your favorite character breathing heavily and covered in /their/ favorite character's blood. And when that's not readily available for your consumption...well, sometimes you just gotta make your own fun.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eddie Janko

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, one and all, to my first foray into the Blue Bloods fandom! The working title of this fic was, appropriately, “Kill the Cutie”. Chapters generally flip from Eddie Janko’s POV to Danny Reagan’s, with a few interludes. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, there’s a tumblr text post that says something to the effect of “Gosh, that’s an awfully nice OTP you’ve got there. It’d sure be a shame if ONE OF THEM WAS BRUTALLY EXECUTED IN FRONT OF THE OTHER ONE!”
> 
> In the spirit of that post, I present to you this massive opus.

The mid-July sun is high, and patrolling the streets feels like willingly stepping onto its molten gaseous surface to burn. Amidst the dips in between buildings, the sticky summer air settles cling-wrap-tight over the city and all her occupants.

Eddie Janko thanks every god under that stupid sun that the patrol car has air conditioning.

“It’s my pick for lunch today,” she reminds Jamie as he radios central to inform the dispatcher of their impending meal break, poking his bicep with as much annoyance as she can muster.

Jamie snorts, pulling the car off the street in an infuriatingly perfect parallel parking job. “Uh-huh. Over my dead body.”

“But you picked yesterday.” If anyone else said it, it would be considered whining but Eddie prides herself on the fact that she absolutely _does not_ whine.

“Yeah, and you picked where we went for drinks after tour!” her partner exclaims in good-natured exasperation, clambering out of the vehicle. “Unlike some people, _I_ learned how to take turns when I was a toddler, Eddie.”

“No, you really didn’t,” she retorts. “You’re the baby of that family and I’ve met your siblings; you never fucking learned.” The resounding metallic slam of the car door punctuates her statement beautifully.

As they wander through the sector they’ve been assigned for the day searching for food they can agree on, Jamie aimlessly whistles the same few bars of a song that Eddie can’t seem to place until she stops dead in her tracks and stares at her partner disbelievingly.

“Too hot? Hot damn?” she asks, a single blonde brow raised in vexation.

“Call the po-lice and the fireman!” he singsongs back, laughing because he thinks he’s so tremendously clever.

She decides that the only appropriate response is to knock Jamie’s hat off his head and call him an asshole in Serbian. He lets it go, though; slips on his aviators and snags his hat off the ground with a needlessly graceful motion before shooting her a shit-eating grin.

They round a corner in lockstep and she sees the snub nose of the machine pistol through the passing sedan’s open window only seconds before she hears it go off in a familiar beat of gunfire. Then the car is gone and she only catches half its license plate – _90PL_ – but Reagan’s probably got the whole thing because he’s so fucking neurotic about shit like that. “Hey,” she calls, getting to her feet from where she’d ducked into a doorway. “You get the whole plate, or am I the big winner today?”

The only response, however, is this horrible sound Jamie makes, high and tight in his throat, and Eddie has to swallow over her next words because the realization hits her like a rubber round to the vest; _Jamie is hurt_ and she thinks briefly that she might vomit.

She’s barking their current location down the radio before she realizes quite what’s happened, and she doesn’t recognize her own voice echoing in her ears. “10-13, 10-13,” she calls, trying to express the mounting desperation in her voice while remaining composed. “12-David requesting EMS forthwith; got an MOS who’s sustained multiple gunshot wounds.”

It’s hard to stay calm, though, because she can see the line of bullet wounds stitched one-two-three-four-five across Jamie’s chest and the seeping blood darkening his uniform blues to nearly black. Almost immediately, the internal mantra of _oh shit oh shit oh shit_ begins.

“’s fine,” he whispers sharply. “I’m fine.” But there’s blood on his lips and more spattered on the ground below his cheek, and she wonders, vaguely, when this became her life, when it became a comforting sign to see bloody froth bubbling in the crease of her partner’s mouth, since at least if he’s still bleeding then he’s still alive.

Snagging the tactical knife off her belt, she slices the buttons off Jamie’s shirt and tears away his t-shirt underneath, peeling the cloth back and swearing. Not two, but _three_ sucking chest wounds. The coppery scent of blood floods her nose, heightening her senses. “Fuck,” she snarls, kneeing up awkwardly to press her shin down along the neatly staggered injuries because, dammit, she needs her hands right now.

“What?” he grinds out through gritted teeth, struggling to breathe between the weight of his partner’s leg pinning him to the ground and the pain lancing through his body. “S’madda, Eddie?”

“Five entry wounds,” she says, addressing both Jamie and the open channel on her shoulder-mounted radio. “All upper torso. Three are definitely sucking; I’ve only got two HALO seals on me.”

“Fuck,” Jamie echoes weakly. “Exit wounds?”

She shakes her head, “Only found one, buddy. Came out under your shoulder blade.”

His eyes squeeze shut, a deep wrinkle forming between his brows, “Damn.”

“Where’s your vest, you idiot?” she probes breathlessly. “Where the hell is your Kevlar, Jamie?”

“Took it off ‘cause I’m stupid,” he explains, the familiar matter-of-fact tone clear in his flagging voice. “You know me, Ed. Never usin’ my head.”

“You took it off?” Eddie repeats incredulously. “Un-fucking-believable.”

Jamie nods slowly, the side of his head grinding audibly against the pavement. “Didn’t even put it on today. Was too hot,” he mumbles. “’S still sittin’ in th’back of the car.”

“How far out is my medic?” she shouts to the dispatcher, fumbling for her wallet. This is not how this day was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be kneeling on the burning asphalt trying desperately to keep Jamie’s blood inside his body where it belongs.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man below her mumbles through tightly clenched teeth, slurring slightly. “C’mon, Eddie. You know it doesn’t matter.”

“Fuck off, Reagan; it _does_ matter. Now gimme your hand,” she says, pressing the offending appendage to a pulsing wound just below his opposite armpit. “I need you to keep pressure on this as best you can.” She overturns her wallet on the ground beside them, grabbing the foil packet of chest seals from between the loose bills and tearing it open with her teeth.

“You know,” Jamie wheezes as Eddie removes her leg from his sternum, “Most girls…keep condoms in there…not HALOs.”

Most girls also didn’t go to an emergency field-treatment seminar focused on stab wounds four months ago as part of a summit meeting between Patrol and Gang Division, but that’s beside the point.

“Yeah, well, what’ve I been tellin’ you since the beginning?” she says, peeling off the sterile backing. “I’m not like the other girls.” His smile is more of a grimace than a grin, but she’ll take what she can get. “Breathe out real quick and hold it,” she instructs him, smoothing one seal down, then the second. “‘Kay, you can breathe now.”

“Easier,” he says, his breath coming in quick, hard pants, “Than it sounds.”

“I gotcha, Jamie. You’re gonna be okay, promise. Paramedics are on their way up here right now, and you’re gonna be fine.” A trickle of sweat slithers from the base of her tightly braided bun down her spine.

“I scared you,” he says softly, as if this is a revelation. “’m sorry.”

“Nah, partner, it’s okay. It’s okay!” Eddie fights a visible wince, because this is so typical of Jamie. Here he is, lying in the street, _shot_ , looking like he’s about to pass out from the pain, and he’s thinking about her feelings. She wants to laugh, and cry, and the noise that comes out is a strained, wet breath instead. “We’re gonna getcha to the hospital, and it’s gonna be fine. You’re fine. You said so yourself; you’re fine.”

The thing is, she can feel the slick slide of Jamie’s blood under her hand, and she knows that there is a very small window before this situation becomes unfixable and un-fine.

The thing is, she knows that his family can’t do this again, not after his brother, not after that horrible day.

Jamie lets out a hacking cough that Eddie knows with a sinking feeling means blood in his lungs. She can smell the metallic edge on his breath as he mumbles, “Holy shit; ’m dyin’, Eddie,” with a dazed air of detachment.

“You’re not _dying_ , you fucking drama queen,” she snaps, even as her bloodied hands slip wetly over his skin. “You’re just going into shock.”

Her mind is racing; she needs another seal because Jamie’s hand borders on useless and she doesn’t have a kit, it’s in the car parked _six blocks away_ , and she doesn’t have _time_ , and _where is her ambulance_ , and the best thing she has to MacGyver into a chest seal is her driver’s license.

Quickly, she tugs the plastic card from its laminated sleeve and pushes it hard against the wound tucked beneath Jamie’s now-bloody palm. The blood coming from the injury seals the card down tight to the skin, and she exhales shakily. That’s the very best she can do for now; that’s all she’s got. She feels Jamie’s chest stutter under her palms as he tries and fails to hold back his cough, feels the warm blood hit her cheek and chin. Her hands hover over him, wet and dripping, unsure what more to try, where to touch, where _not_ to touch.

“Hey,” she jostles his shoulder a little, trying to draw his attention. “I need you to look at me, Jamie; you gotta look at me,” she repeats because – apparently – with panic bubbling under her skin, she echoes everything she says twice for some asinine reason.

Her voice isn’t sharp anymore. It’s scared and worried and she hates it, and she doesn’t want to beg, but she can’t stop herself. “Please, Jamie, please,” she repeats inanely. “Please, please, don’t do this, please.”

“Can’t,” he says, his mouth twisting up in a pained frown.

“If you die, Reagan, if you die, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Jesus, you’re all bloody,” Jamie mumbles, sloppily trying to grab her hand from where it’s pressed tight against his chest. “You hurt, Eddie?”

 _Shit shit shit_.

“Not my blood; I’m fine,” the blonde spits, anger coating the edges of her fear.

“Whose blood is that?” He tries to enunciate, but the words come out like mush, like he’s absolutely shitfaced wasted.

Eddie feels the corners of her eyes tighten a little as she replies, “It’s yours, jackass.”

“Oh.” Then, weakly, under his breath: “You’re the jackass.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course I am; Reagan’s perfect and Janko’s mean. Rookie Reagan and Jackass Janko, that’s us.” Hands pressed against his chest so hard her wrists are starting to ache, she listens carefully to his uneven breathing. “You doin’ okay, Regan?”

No answer.

“Jamie?”

Nothing.

“Please.” Her eyes zero in on the light freckles that’ve broken out across the bridge of his nose from being outside in the sun all summer, “You gotta keep talkin’ to me.”

“’t hurts,” he pants, barely coherent, the words coming out a slurred mess. “God, Eddie.”

She’s never heard her name said quite like that before, in the desperate, ragged tone Jamie uses.

“Okay, okay, that’s fine, just, you gotta stay awake, alright? Just work on stayin’ awake for me.” With one hand, she smooths Jamie’s hair back off his forehead, leaving behind a bloody smear. “It’s gonna be fucking alright,” she insists, voice quiet and rough, even though she can barely feel him breathing. “It’s gonna be alright.”

“’s not.”

“Jamie,” she says a little frantically. It’s just one word, but she still tries to cram everything she wants to articulate into it. She’s struggling to stay rational, stay cool, but the paralyzing dread is flooding in because there is only so much she can do, only so much she can help.

He doesn’t answer, just takes a harsh, uneven breath and stares up at her, eyes wide.

It’s hot. It’s so fucking hot in this concrete valley of the city, and Eddie’s clothes are sticking to her, heavy with blood and cooling sweat.

“Please, please, please, don’t, Jamie, _don’t, please_.” The words become something that is both a refrain and a request, spilling shrilly out of her mouth because she can’t, she _can’t_. She can’t lose him; she can’t be the cop who killed the police commissioner’s son. The very thought makes her heart pound, makes her breath shudder, makes her shake because he’s not just that; he’s more than the commissioner’s son, he’s her partner, he’s her friend, he’s –

He’s barely breathing. His eyelids flutter at a blinding pace, and his lips twitch soundlessly.

“Be okay,” she murmurs next to his ear, imploring him to, “Please, please, be okay.”

*

Despite the watch on her wrist clearly visible in her peripherals, Eddie has no idea how much time has passed when she finally hears sirens shrieking in discordant harmony, other than the fact that her legs and ass have begun to go numb from her inert position seated on the ground. Relief rolls like a cold wave over her when the ambulance swings into the side street flashing its red and blues, followed in quick succession by a trio of squad cars.

Eyes red-rimmed and brimming with fury, she grits her teeth at the ambulance crew, snarling in frustration. “God damn you. What the actual _fuck_ took you so long?”

Elbowing her out of the way, they throw their bags down beside Jamie’s supine form, a constant stream of unintelligible verbal cues firing between the men like radar pings. Blood spurts from his mouth as he weakly gags. A faceless EMT grabs a suction tube, clears Jamie’s airways for him. Another medic snaps an oxygen mask down over her partner’s slack face, twisting to dig thick pads of sterile gauze from his kit.

In the flurry of noise all around her, someone screams; a wordless noise that grates against her brain and makes her teeth ache. She feels larger, thicker fingers against her own, fumbling with pressure dressings and trying to bat her hands away at the same time. Strong bands of muscle encircle her, pull her up, back, away; she hears rather than feels her feet hit the ground. Her legs shake under her and it feels like she’s run for miles.

Stumbling, she is tugged away by a pair of uniforms – Keeler and Connolly – who speak to her in overlapping low tones meant to calm her _– “Eddie, Eddie, c’mon, hush; he’ll be okay, come on, let’s get you out of here”_ – but her heart is beating so fast and there’s still someone screaming and her head hurts.

Every motion the EMTs make is one of brutal efficiency. There’s an adept steadiness and surety in the movement of their blood-slicked blue gloves passing over and around Jamie’s damaged chest. Between the two of them, they swaddle Jamie’s torso in a veritable cocoon of bandages, insert an IV into his arm, brace and strap him onto a stretcher, begin maneuvering him with practiced urgency between the open rear doors of the ambulance.

“Jamie,” she chokes, her voice rough, like she’s swallowed a fistful of broken glass and – _oh_ – she was the one screaming. Something in her chest goes instantly tight, and suddenly she’s fighting just to keep from hyperventilating.

Eddie wonders for a moment if it would be easier to just let herself breathe like that, fast and shallow, until she passes out cold on the cement. Her head swims; she feels dizzy, and looks down at her feet. Knowing that the stickiness underneath her soles is from Jamie’s blood makes her dry-heave. The bloodied ground begins to tilt up towards her; she has two feet, then four, then two again, and then none as her vision darkens to a hazy gray fog. Except – and she shakes herself a little bit, trying to urge herself back to full cognizance – she can’t very well break down or black out in the middle of the street because _Jamie still needs her_.

“We gotta go!” the paramedic calls back over his shoulder to Eddie. “You comin’ or stayin’?”

She reads the paramedic’s lips through blurred vision as the world begins to pull back into focus. “Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you; go, I’m gonna follow!”

The siren wails again as the ambulance pulls out of the side street, and she turns to the assembled cadre of officers, really seeing them for the first time since they arrived.

Keeler looks openly horrified, unsure if any of the blood is Eddie’s or not. Connolly is about six shades paler than normal, and looks distinctly like she might be ill. Rousonelos, the probie who’s been riding with Donovan, stares unblinking at the reddened concrete. Halder, the senior officer on scene out of the 1-4, about loses it when he sees Eddie trying not to collapse in on herself, barely managing to stand despite being held up by three uniformed officers. “What the hell are you still doing on your feet? Get over there and siddown!” he directs with not-a-little venom in his voice, pointing an accusatory finger towards the sidewalk.

“Jesus, Janko,” Rousonelos breathes, helping Keeler lower her down to sit on the curb. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she chokes, awareness coming in flashes.

A god-awful amount of people are staring as Eddie buries her face in her knees without thinking anything beyond the overpowering need to hide the blown-out look in her eyes. Blood runs in rivulets from her fingers, even though she keeps wiping her hands on the outer thighs of her pants. Her chest _aches_ with the rasping breaths that rip in and out of her body, hard and fast. There’s a lump forming high in her throat and a familiar prickly burning sensation in her nose, like she’s about to cry.

She doesn’t want to cry. She really, _really_ doesn’t. Not now, not while she needs to back off the panic and head to the hospital. Besides, she can’t cry in front of these guys. No. Never.

Instead, she perches on the edge of the curb with her face in her blood-and-dust-covered pant legs and methodically slows her breathing down until she’s absolutely sure that she’s not going to cry.

*

CSU arrives on the heels of the paramedics and immediately goes to work sealing off the scene with that too-bright yellow tape.

“Hey!” a bull-necked man whose polo shirt bears the distinctive white letters across his shoulder blades barks at her when she crouches down from the sidewalk to collect their hats, Jamie’s mirrored shades, and the scattered contents of her wallet. “That’s evidence; don’t touch that!”

She backs off, standing slowly, bloodstained hands raised in surrender. “Sorry, I’m sorry; it’s just that these are my personal effects.”

Flipping back the top sheet of his clipboard, he shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter, officer. They’re ours for the duration of the investigation. You’ll be compensated for any cash that’s been rendered unfit for circulation, and you can probably get your wallet back from the property clerk by the end of the week.”

‘Rendered unfit for circulation’ meaning ‘covered in blood’.

She falters for a moment, her brain running on fumes of adrenaline and fear. “I’m sorry,” she says again, too softly for anyone else to hear. Ducking under the yellow-taped perimeter, she backs away, still mostly functioning on autopilot.

“Hey. Eddie,” Donovan says, holding the driver’s side door of his patrol car open, “You doin’…are you…”

“Don’t,” she barks. Part of her is quietly horrified that she’s standing here in the street, covered in her partner’s blood, raising her voice at a fellow officer, but she suddenly isn’t _upset_ anymore; she’s _angry_.  “Don’t do that to me, Donovan. You ask me if I’m fucking okay, and I swear to god, man, I swear to god, if you ask me that again…I’m fine.” She gets a shaky breath, gets herself back in control, emotions strapped down tight underneath her ribcage, “’m fine.”

Clearly she’s not fine, not even by her creatively broad definition of the word which accounts for innumerable situations. The adrenaline coursing through her veins makes her hands shake and her whole body practically vibrates.

“You okay to drive?” someone asks – probably Keeler, maybe Halder, she’s not really sure – and she nods, waves dismissively, yeah, yeah, she’s good to go, she’s fine to drive. Connolly makes a grab for Eddie’s arm as she starts to walk away, but she rips her limb from the other woman’s reach, full on gnashing her teeth at the older officer. She can taste blood in her mouth, but she’s so far beyond caring it’s almost comical.

No one tries to stop her after that. She’s on a fucking mission.

The six-block trek to the car helps clear her head and settle her nerves, but hinges on the cruiser’s driver-side door are still a little worse for wear from the resounding slam she gives it after clambering inside. Her hands shake so badly that she can hardly open the packet of antiseptic alcohol wipes from their _useless_ first aid kit. They’re of little use anyways, diluting and spreading the blood around more than they really clean it up.

Still, it’s better than leaving grisly handprints on her steering wheel.

*

By the time she gets to the hospital, the shakes have stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Medical inaccuracies! To my understanding, no way Jamie could have survived these injuries. Also, he gets shot five times for the Five Wounds of Christ. #catholicism 
> 
> 2) Eddie totally has nitrile/latex gloves on her handy dandy police belt, but the bloody hands were more dramatic.
> 
> 3) HALOs! No, not the brand of easily-peel-able clementines marketed to children; the chest seal! And I quote, “The HALO Chest Seal is a high-performance occlusive dressing designed to treat penetrating chest wounds….For use by military, police, fire/rescue, EMS, and all first responders.” They retail for between twelve and twenty dollars for packs of two and three, and it’s entirely plausible that Eddie would just have some hanging around.
> 
> 4) Fun fact, you really CAN make an emergency chest seal out of a driver’s license.
> 
> 5) You can see Det. Nick Amaro use this technique with a credit card in Law & Order: SVU, Season 15, Episode 11 (“Amaro’s One-Eighty”)!
> 
> 6) No way in hell would they have let Eddie drive. Sorry, fam. #creativelicense #notproperpoliceprocedure


	2. Jamie Reagan

Slowly, slowly, the sound comes back over the insistent pounding of blood through his ears.

“You got that OPA in yet, or what?”

“Yeah, one sec. They’re gonna have to trach him at the hospital, but this’ll do for a minute.”

“He’s in and out a lot.”

“Fuck. C’mon, get some more pressure on that.”

“If I press any harder I’m gonna break something.”

“Press harder then, Muñoz. Modern medicine’s an amazing thing; cracked sternums can pretty much always be fixed. Last time I checked, dead cops can’t.”

His throat is blocked and he tastes plastic, but breathing doesn’t seem to be a problem. How is that possib – one thing at a time.

“No, I know that. I’m just telling you that there’s a distinct possibility that I could snap his breastbone.”

Lights float just beyond his eyelids. There is something out there. Motion. All around him.

“Do it, then. We cannot lose this kid.”

“He’s in pretty bad shape, Domin. I’ve never seen a cop take three slugs and pull through, much less _five_.”

“Are you suicidal? _Do not lose him_. He’s the police commissioner’s son.”

“Seriously?”

“Would I fucking lie about something like that? C’mere; get another rapid infusion line going.”

The smell blood. A substantial amount of blood and…plastic. Plastic? He can’t tell if the plastic aura is a smell or a taste or maybe both.

Deep breath in – _how…?_ – and he tries to roll onto his side. Can’t move. Tries to stretch his legs. Can’t move. Deep breath in, and he feels ropes across his chest. Tied? Strapped. Leaden limbs strapped down tight.

“Hey, look sharp; we might have to do a needle decompression on his chest here.”

His eyelid is forcibly peeled back, and he instantly wants nothing more than to _close it_ , to wince away from the light, but he can barely keep his train of thought moving, can barely process the sensations let alone respond to them. Everything feels like it’s on a time delay, like he’s underwater.

White light overhead. White light by his feet. And hovering blobs.

“Pupils are dilated.”

“I don’t like the look of _that._ How much Narcan’d you give him?”

“Just enough to counter the respiratory decline from the morphine. Ten mils.”

 _People,_ the blobs are people, of course.

Oh, fuck. _Eddie._

“Jamie, can you hear me?

_Where is she where is she where is Eddie?_

“Blink if you can hear me, kid,” says the voice attached to the hand he feels on his chest.

_No, no, where is Eddie?_

A high-pitched beeping; “BP’s falling.”

The last thing Jamie Reagan feels is the seemingly wet burn in his lungs as his heart tries to beat without any blood in it.

The last thing he thinks is –

“He’s unresponsive.”

“Jamie?” A seething hiss, then, “ _Shit_.”

*

Amidst of the chaos in the back of the ambulance, Jamison Reagan dies quietly, his passing indicated only by a sudden expansion of his pupils and the long shrill tone from the monitor tracking his vitals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Most of the minor characters in this fic are actually named for other characters the cast of “Blue Bloods” has previously played! Amy Carlson played Keeler, Connolly, and Donovan (although Keeler and Donovan are portrayed as male in this depiction). Will Estes played Adam Halder on L&O: SVU. Rousonelos, and the EMTs, Muñoz and Domin are named after favoured classmates of mine. 
> 
> 2) Speaking of EMTs! I know next to nothing about medicine, and I don’t even watch medical dramas, so I’m wicked sorry if this dialogue blows.

**Author's Note:**

> This went from being a 700-word oneshot to a five-part monstrosity that technically classifies as a novella, so bear with me; it will take a while to get the whole thing posted. Part One (“Band-Aids Don’t Fix Bullet Holes”) can be read as standalone, and that’s totally cool, but if you like Part One and afterwards wanna see the fallout of Jamie Reagan’s death, then may I direct you to Parts Two through Five?


End file.
